Six models of operator seat supplied to local tractor manufacturers were tested in the laboratory in accordance with ISO 5007 and 78/764/EEC. No models out of the six met the allowable damping and transmissibility performance criteria of both ISO 5007 and 78/764/EEC. From the ISO criterion standpoint, one model failed in damping performance and 4 models in isolation performance. From the 78/764/EEC criterion standpoint, 4 models failed in damping performance and 4 models in isolation performance. However none of them failed in all of the criteria, either. Each model met the one acceptance criterion but failed in another. This indicated that operator seat must be improved to meet the current ISO 5007 or 78/764/EEC and the exposure limit value that will be enforced in EU tractor market from 2014 by EU Directive 2002/44 EC.

This study was carried out to develop a vine crusher for harvesting sweet potato. The experimental two-row vine crusher attachable to agricultural tractor composed of vine crushing part with frail type vine crushing blades and vine lifting blades, power transmission part with chain and gear transmission mechanism, crushing height control part with two control wheels and manual levers, and implement frames, was designed and fabricated. And this vine crushing performance was also analyzed. From vine crushing tests, backward travel direction (i.e., rotational direction of the vine crushing blades) showed better vine crushing performance than forward travel direction. Crushing ratio of remained vine was increased, and length of remained vine and length of crushed vine were decreased as working speed was decreased and rotational speed of vine crushing blades was increased. At a working speed of 0.27 m/s and rotational speed of vine crushing blades of 800 rpm, crushing ratio of remained vine was 98%, length of remained vine was 104 mm, and length of crushed vine was 327 mm. But, when crushing vine on irregular ridges, vines and mulching vinyl were wound in the vine crushing part. Therefore, change of location of power transmission chain mechanism, and an automatic control device for controlling crushing height were needed.

An experimental variable rate nursery sprayer was developed to adjust application rates for canopy volume in real time. The sprayer consisted of two vertical booms integrated with ultrasonic sensors, and variable rate nozzles coupled with pulse width modulation (PMW) based solenoid valves. A custom-designed microcontroller instructed the sensors to detect canopy size and occurrence and then controlled nozzles to achieve variable application rates. A spray delivery system, which consisted of diaphragm pump, pressure regulator and 4-cycle gasoline engine, offered the spray discharge function. Spray delay time, time adjustment in spray trigger for the leading distance of the sensor, was measured with a high-speed camera, and it was from 50 to 140 ms earlier than the desired time (398 ms) at 3.2 km/h under indoor conditions. Consequently, the sprayer triggered 4.5 to 12.5 cm prior to detected targets. Duty cycles of the sprayer were from 20 to 34 ms for senor-to-canopy (STC) distance from 0.30 to 0.76 m. Outdoor test confirmed that the nozzles were triggered from 290 to 380 ms after detecting tree canopy at 3.2 km/h. The spray rate of the new sprayer was 58.4 to 85.2% of the constant application rate (935 L/ha). Spray coverage was collected at four areas of evergreen canopy by water sensitive papers (WSP), and ranged from 1.9 to 41.1% and 1.8 to 34.7% for variable and constant rate applications, respectively. One WSP area had significant (P < 0.05) difference in mean spray coverage between two application conditions.

In this work, the finite element method was used to investigate the shifts of resonance frequencies and quality factor of whispering-gallery-mode (WGM) for an opto-fluidic ring resonator (OFRR) biosensor. To describe the near-field radiation transfer, the time-domain Maxwell`s equations were employed and solved by using the in-plane TE wave application mode of the COMSOL Multiphysics with RF module. The OFRR biosensor model under current study includes a glass capillary with a diameter of 100 mm and wall thickness of 3.0 mm. The resonance energy spectrum curves in the wavelength range from 1545 nm to 1560 nm were examined under different biosensing conditions. We mainly studied the sensitivity of resonance shifts affected by changes in the effective thickness of the sensor resonator ring with a 3.0 mm thick wall, as well as changes in the refractive index (RI) of the medium inside ring resonators with both 2.5 mm and 3.0 mm thick walls. In the bulk RI detection, a sensitivity of 23.1 nm/refractive index units (RIU) is achieved for a 2.5 mm thick ring. In small molecule detection, a sensitivity of 26.4 pm/nm is achieved with a maximum Q-factor of . These results compare favorably with those obtained by other researchers.

An optical sensing approach based on diffuse reflectance has shown potential for rapid and reliable on-site estimation of soil properties. Important sensing ranges and the resulting regression models useful for soil property estimation have been reported. In this study, a similar approach was applied to investigate the potential of reflectance sensing in estimating soil properties for Korean paddy fields. Soil cores up to a 65-cm depth were collected from 42 paddy fields representing 14 distinct soil series that account for 74% of the total Korean paddy field area. These were analyzed in the laboratory for several important physical and chemical properties. Using air-dried, sieved soil samples, reflectance data were obtained from 350 to 2500 nm on a 3 nm sampling interval with a laboratory spectrometer. Calibrations were developed using partial least squares (PLS) regression, and wavelength bands important for estimating the measured soil properties were identified. PLS regression provided good estimations of Mg (

Image analysis algorithm for the quality evaluation of ginseng seedling was investigated. The images of ginseng seedling were acquired with a color CCD camera and processed with the image analysis methods, such as binary conversion, labeling, and thinning. The processed images were used to calculate the length and weight of ginseng seedlings. The length and weight of the samples could be predicted with standard errors of 0.343 mm, and 0.0214 g respectively, values of 0.8738 and 0.9835 respectively. For the evaluation of the three quality grades of Gab, Eul, and abnormal ginseng seedlings, features from the processed images were extracted. The features combined with the ratio of the lengths and areas of the ginseng seedlings efficiently differentiate the abnormal shapes from the normal ones of the samples. The grade levels were evaluated with an efficient pattern recognition method of support vector machine analysis. The quality grade of ginseng seedling could be evaluated with an accuracy of 95% and 97% for training and validation, respectively. The result indicates that color image analysis with support vector machine algorithm has good potential to be used for the development of an automatic sorting system for ginseng seedling.

The computer vision system was designed and constructed to measure the weight of a dairy cattle. Its development involved the functions of image capture, image preprocessing, image algorithm, and control integrated into one program. The experiments were conducted with the model dairy cattle and the real dairy cattle by two ways. First experiment with the model dairy cattle was conducted by using the indoor vision experimental system, which was built to measure the model dairy cattle in the laboratory. Second experiment with real dairy cattle was conducted by using the outdoor vision experimental system, which was built for measuring 229 heads of cows in the cattle facilities. This vision system proved to a reliable system by conducting their performance test with 15 heads of real cow in the cattle facilities. Indirect weight measuring with four methods were conducted by using the image processing system, which was the same system for measuring of body parameters. Error value of transform equation using chest girth was 30%. This error was seen as the cause of accumulated error by manually measurement. So it was not appropriate to estimate cow weight by using the transform equation, which was calculated from pixel values of the chest girth. Measurement of cow weight by multiple regression equation from top and side view images has relatively less error value, 5%. When cow weight was measured indirectly by image surface area from the pixel of top and side view images, maximum error value was 11.7%. When measured cow weight by image volume, maximum error weight was 57 kg. Generally, weight error was within 30 kg but maximum error 10.7%. Volume transform method, out of 4 measuring weight methods, was minimum error weight 21.8 kg.

A high prevalence of protected horiculture farmer`s work-related musculo-skeletal disorders (MSDs) have been reported in precedent studies. One of the tasks required ergonomic intervention to reduce the musculo-skeletal risks is the task of harvesting. The purpose of this study is to evaluate quantitatively the spinal load of worker harvesting with squatting posture to predict and prevent musculo-skeletal risks. Spinal load in Squatting posture with asymmetric trunk motion were analyzed. Before evaluating spinal load on harvesting worker by bio-mechanical approach, it is needed to validate human model. In this study, ADAMS LifeMOD human model shows satisfactory results, comparing with already validated model`s results or measured results. While worker reached arms (20%, 40%, 70% arm reach) with various asymmetric trunk motion (0, 45, 90 degree), their spinal loads (extension, twisting and lateral bending moment) were evaluated. In case of extensor moment at lumbo-sacral joint, the more the arm reach got increased, the moment increased. however, in case of twisting moment and lateral bending moment, the more both arm reach and asymmetric trunk motion got increased, the moment increased significantly. The findings of this study suggest that it need to be determine the spinal load, especially twisting, lateral bending moment in evaluating musculo-skeletal workload in squatting posture.